I Could Laugh or I Could Cry

(on Hopkins)

Moi: It's not a bad choice as a safety school.

Doc Binks: Unless you want safety. Then it's a bad choice.

Stand By Me

The Japanese students on campus have been hard at work raising money for the relief efforts ever since last week. I don't pretend to understand what they are going through or have a special claim to the country, but having grown up in a formerly Japanese occupied state, having experienced immigration first hand, and being human, my heart goes out to these studets. They have been doing a great job mobilizing together to do everything that they can to help the people back home. Though I have already contributed to the efforts online (as I suspect many at the school have), I have also tried to show my support in person, giving money and providing unintentional comic relief, thanks mostly to language barriers, a loud cafeteria, and our ever present friend awkwardity.

On Monday, I stopped by the table to chat with a first year in my program who was helping with the efforts. Rather than aggressively pounce on people for donations, the students running the table have been fairly successful by just standing there and having conversations. This is great in one sense. But it makes the actual transaction difficult. My encounter went something like this:

Moi: How much money have you guys raised?

Ry: My family are all OK, but I have not heard from my friends in the north so I do not know.

Moi: ... ... Wow. That is hard. Um. I am so sorry. (some more weak interstitials) Can I give you guys money?

Each donation is rewarded with a small Japanese snack and each $20 donation comes with a t-shirt (should the donor desire). Today, craving a little snack, I stopped by the table again with a $2 donation. The lady running the table was skeptical.

Lady (concerned): You already gave on Monday. I remember.

Moi: I know, I just wanted to see if I could get a little snack. Can I give you $2 for this?

Lady (incredulous): You want to give more money?

Moi: I just want a snack. Is that OK?

(confers with friend, both laugh in my face, hands me the snack, we all walk away happy)

Dress Thyself

Doctor Bill was in one of our classes last semester. He wasn't just a mid-career practicing physician going back to school, he was a dad with teenage daughters. And he wasn't just a surgeon, he was a neurosurgeon. We all liked him for what he contributed to the class and for not being an arrogant jerk like so many of his colleagues. Yet because it was very hard to compliment him without sounding like I was putting down his profession, I ended last semester with a vague comment to him that conveyed none of our appreciation but all of my awkwardness.

Last semester, Doctor Bill always showed up to class late and in scrubs, sometimes with a white coat. The uniform elicited eye rolls at first but gradually became part of his intrigue. He was fit. He was tanned. And he was in scrubs. Today, we saw him in civilian clothing for the first time. We also saw him without his charm and intrigue for the first time. Though I'm grateful that the sight of him was the sole force keeping me awake and amused for the 120 minute lecture this afternoon. It wasn't just the dad jeans, but that he wore them with an over sized orange shirt. And a sweater vest. An orange-green-red sweater vest. It prompted Amy to comment that she "only gets surgery from well-dressed people" and led to this awesome graph (I supplied the points), a graph that every patient should know:

Mad Matters

There they were, Father and Mother, a combined 5 master's degrees between them.

"It's 77 by 77."

"No, it's 3 sticks on one side, 3 and a half sticks the other."

"You cannot measure things with sticks! I have a tape measure right here, see 77 inches."

"Why won't you believe me?"

"Look at the hypotenuse, this is a square!"

These are the facts that we know: My parents' new mattress is 77 by 77 inches. Their bed is not. My mother fractured her sacrum in January and is on bed rest for 16 weeks.

As often seen in our political debates, there are facts, and there are people who refuse to believe them. Like Mother.

I came home home last night to discover a giant box in the drive way, one that I had the privilege of lugging upstairs with my dad. It was their new mattress. Mother helped the proceedings by not remaining in bed but commenting how the last time they did this, Father wasn't home (in Taiwan tending then comatose mother) and she did it "all by herself" ... after people lugged it upstairs for her.

Moi: Um... I was here. I helped you move it onto the bed.

Mother: Oh that's right, I did it by myself with you.

Because the bed is not 77 inches by 77 inches but the mattress is, it all looked a little funny at first. So Father and I rotated the mattress by 90 degrees. It looked slightly better. Then Mother insisted that it was "wrong" and asked us to move it another 90 degrees. To appease her, we did. We all agreed that it'd be the last time we'd move it. Then Mother realized that that looked "wrong." Do you sense a pattern here? I moved the mattress another 90 degrees.

That was Part I. The yell-y part came this morning, when, invigorated by a full night's rest, Mother focused on the mattress again (the mattress that we'd rotated to her specifications twice the night before). Father, being the engineer, took out the measuring tape and measured both bed and mattress to figure out where the discrepancies were. The mattress was square. The bed was not. No matter how you tilt it, there'd be a 4 inch gap lengthwise. Mother, being the pianist, took the stick she found on the floor. And you know the rest.

(Oh, you don't? It's a story as old as time itself. The patient on bed rest attempted to move the king size mattress herself. We reluctantly intervened. Thereby rotating the square mattress for the fourth time.)

For those of you keeping score at home, that's Crazy 1, Logic 0, Metric System 0, Father 0, Father's Engineering Degree 0, Mother 1.

Oops

Did anyone catch it when I accidentally posted a personal email here about weekend plans? Absolutely mortifying. I am still having tremors.

Eep

Emily and I didn't invent a secret language called Eep in middle school. We just pretended that we did. I don't remember if we ever had a discussion about the logistics of inventing a secret language and gave up on it, or if we were pragmatic about the whole thing right from the beginning. We just needed Melanie Kim to think that we had made up a language and that she was excluded from it. So Emily would say a few 'eeps' at recess and I'd pretend to laugh at what she said. I do remember that the satisfaction of leaving her out, or watching Melanie Kim 'eep' as she pretended she was in on a language that really wasn't, was never as satisfying as I had expected. And it was the kind of achievement we couldn't tell other people. Our classmates didn't care. And it seemed too mean of an act to brag to my friends.

That was always the problem. We hated Melanie Kim. But she thought we were her friends, if not from actual like than a social necessity. We were her only friends in sixth grade. I was practically a gift: an Asian girl who was new in town and who'd missed the first few days of school. Naturally, we were placed together and told to be friends. And Emily? Well, she became my friend, so Melanie scored a 2-for-1 deal with us. We were too nice to be outright mean. Or perhaps too cowardly. Too selfish. Too by-the-books good. Though it's entirely possible that we didn't talk too much of our disdain for Melanie. We were, when it comes downright to it, too nerdy to be full out mean. We were preoccupied with books and trying to impress each other and our hatred for Ms. Brady.

Whenever I look back at my middle school years, I am astounded by the misguided self confidence I had with me in those early days. I believed myself to be special and smarter than everyone and who cares about anything else? I think Emily and I worked well together because she believed the same thing. Seventh grade followed sixth grade, then eighth, then high school, and college. And every year, we didn't become smarter, but more knowledgeable. We quit math team. We listened to pop music. We became self aware. And we got friends who grew more interesting and more like us every year. Until finally we began to wear our confidence not as a shield, but a way to enjoy the world and became so cool that we didn't need to invent a fake language to feel superior. We already are.

Then again, that's what I had thought in the sixth grade.

Chips Ahoy

Yesterday, I wandered up and down Mass Ave. looking for old action figures.  Do you have old action figures?  They don't have to be in good condition.  They just need to be able to stand.  I need a dozen of them.  This journey led me to many different stores, where the clerks suggested still many other stores.  One of which was Pandemonium Toys & Games.  That sounds promising, no?  No.  This was the type of store that dealt in magic cards.  And had a room for game play.  Which I accidentally walked into.  But not the Yahtzee kind.  It was all very serious and uncomfortable.  And everyone there was very lanky.  Much like the people at the art store.  Except they were friendlier.  And I ended up buying 5 pirate figurines.

Yesterday, I also got to meet Riles for coffee, which caused former roommate Amy to go into a jealous fit and text Riles.  It was when we met up that I remembered that on my way to meet her, I had had a cookie.  But suddenly, I didn't see this cookie anymore.  Where was this cookie?  Not in my pocket.  Not in my other pocket.  I checked many pockets.  Then found it, shoved into my backpack.  Not even one of those small pockets.  Nope, I had just dumped it into the bag.  And retrieved the crumb-y cookie in front of my former advisor.  Because my life will never cease being a stream of smooth.

The One That Is For Rachel.

This is at least 7 kinds of nerdy, and not so much epi jokes as health services research jokes. A compilation of my proudest creations/collaborations in the past few weeks:

What do pirates die of?

hARGHt disease.

What are they prescribed for it?

ARBs.

Where do (research) pirates get their funding?

AHRQ. (Alternatively, RWJ)

Where do they publish?

Archives (of Internal Medicine).

Work a Day

I love/hate coming into work the day after exams.  I hate that I always sign up for it when I could be doing other things, such as sleeping, mending the holes in my shoes, or laundry.  But Pre-Exam Me isn't very bright and always overestimates my enthusiasm for work (heck, Exam Me isn't very smart either).  But I come and I work and in the silence of the office, I start to remember that I enjoy this stuff.  Then I stop by the board and see that people have added their own health services pirate jokes and it all helps the medicine go down.

Whitecastle: How's our paper coming?

Moi: Uh, well, it's- um, I had exams, so I had-

Whitecastle: This is going to be a good paper.

Moi: Is that the correct answer?

Whitecastle: "This will make you proud" would also have been acceptable.

El Guaco

Do you feel neglected, Dear Diary? It's finals season (the penultimate one before graduation) so my sleep schedule, fruit and vegetable intake, general well being, and school work quality, all feel neglected. Especially exercise regimen, but I've been neglecting that for two years, so what else is new? Last night, after our last class with Prof Papa, we went out for drinks, Papa included. Well, those of is with work ethic went home to work on finals, but I was not in that group.

Despite 35 years of working at the school, Papa had never been to the
bar we had chosen, one of only 2 restaurant/bars within a three minute walk from the school. Giving him directions for the place just down the street seemed impossible, so After much debate over whether it's perpendicular to T.G.I. Friday (nothing is), I sent Jesse to escort him over.

The rest of his time with us (he had a tennis date later) was just as delightfully cranky as the beginning. He ordered "2 big sides of guacamole, just two big things, as fast as you can," to a confused waitress. "Do you want chips with that?". As Jesse later explained later, 30 minutes with Papa was just the perfect amount of time, before all his conversation topics have been exhausted and his true awkwardness comes out. isn't that true for all of is?

Things I Dreamt Last Night

Things I Dreamt Last Night

That I found Jason's chopsticks and I got a new MacBook with
Moviemaker as a present.

Then woke up to a cruel reality this morning that neither was true.
(but the weather was nice and it's still Sunday, so there's that)

Sent from my iPod

Chopsticks Duet

About a month ago, I celebrated the lunar new year by having a dumpling party. Because I invited more people over than my apartment and accessories could afford, people drank wine out of solo cups and I had Jason bring over his stash of chopsticks.

Since then, I've tried very hard to return Jason's chopsticks, but it's been a very difficult process. For starters, I couldn't find them. I could only reasonably pick out 2 pairs that I thought were his. The rest were jumbled in the cutlery drawer. But he said he was missing more and hadn't brought any home that night (which was what I had suspected), so I checked the drawer again.

But Landlady Chang insisted all the chopsticks in the drawers were hers. (And then I picked out the ones that obviously weren't and she relented.) But I was in a pickle. Where were those darn chopsticks? I checked and checked and no avail.

Until this morning. When Landlady Chang noted that the drawer seemed unusually full of chopsticks. "But you said they were all yours." "Oh. Maybe we have the same ones." Nearing an answer, I checked with Jason to see how many he was missing. Only to find out he wasn't missing that many. Maybe only the 2 that I first spotted.

So one month later. I've identified 2 pairs of chopsticks and 2 crazies. Happy new year.

Three's Company

On Monday, we gave a presentation on bed bugs to our cohort chock full
of cookies, information, and fun. The highlight of the whole thing
was a craft project in which we had everyone in class make a bed bug.
I'm proud of our presentation. And was excited to show my bed bug to
Edith and Doc Poppy. They were skeptical of the whole ordeal.

Doc Poppy: So this is what you're doing in school?

Edith: Don't you pay a lot of money to go to this school?

We sure do. Even though we have so few donors that only 2 of our 4
buildings are named. So we refer to 2 by name and 2 by number
(Kresge, FXB, Building 1 and Building 2). Even though all 4 are
technically numbered. This practice is not confusing at all. And
that was how we bumped into Prof Papa yesterday, wandering the halls
and asking "Which one is Building 3?" "I have no idea. Wait a
minute, didn't they just give you an award for being here for 30
years?" (It was apparently the building his office is housed in. Not
the building he was walking toward.)